Economy
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Facing a global economic slowdown, the Labor government will need a new strategy to rise to the economic challenges ahead
The Albanese Labor Government has had a very good first six months, however the challenges that lie ahead will be much more demanding. The Government needs to articulate its vision of how our social cohesion depends upon creating an Australian society that is caring and with reasonable equality of opportunity as the foundation for why Continue reading »
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Pentagon fails another audit, yet congress poised to approve $847 billion budget
“This isn’t using our taxpayer dollars wisely,” said the National Priorities Project. “It’s robbing programs that we need, like the discontinued child tax credit that cut child poverty by half.” Continue reading »
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NBN write-down confirms its national importance and Coalition failure
The previous Coalition Government under the Minister for Communication Malcolm Turnbull promised: ’a cheaper, good quality NBN, faster delivered’. It failed on all counts. Continue reading »
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How the US is rupturing the Transatlantic alliance with Europe
We are at an inflexion point in world affairs in which the economies of Europe and East Asia are paying the price for a misguided US strategy to re-establish its position as leader of a unipolar world and defeat competition from China and Russia. Continue reading »
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Outrageous executive salaries: undemocratic, unethical and unproductive
The current threat to democracy in several countries is not helped at all by the growth of executive salary packages. Continue reading »
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Noel Pearson and the job guarantee
Indigenous leader Noel Pearson’s third Boyer lecture, first broadcast on ABC on 18 November 2022, is worthy of much praise. It is titled ‘The first game changer: a job guarantee for the bottom million’. Continue reading »
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Robodebt: can you recall a greater failure of public administration?
Federal Court Justice Bernard Murphy described Robodebt as “a massive failure of public administration”. So far the Royal Commission has made little progress is establishing how it happened, given contrary legal advice and warnings from mid-level public servants of the policy dangers. Continue reading »
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The coming Sinophobic calamity
Neither the red wave nor the blue one materialised in the latest election, which removes some of the impetus for the coming congressional Sinophobic rampage. Continue reading »
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The biggest threat to capitalism? Purveyors of mistrust
If social trust is good for society, and for the economy overall, why is such a decline in trust occurring? The simple answer is because some businesses make money from distrust. Continue reading »
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The ‘Secure Work’ Bill inches Australia into the 21st Century
The world of work has changed a lot in the past half century. Continue reading »
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Greed and a spoiled society: workers are not the problem
Of course The Australian republished Andy Kessler’s ridiculous Wall Street Journal column, “The decline of work in a spoiled society.” Those News Corp bedfellows continue to miss that they are at the core of the problem. Continue reading »
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COP27: Investors are the wrong people to address climate change
The leaders in the creation of the low-carbon infrastructure of the future must be those who will know how to build it, not those whose principal occupation is trading shares on the secondary market. This is why I believe that China, despite its current dependence on coal, is much more likely to achieve its future Continue reading »
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Employers cry wolf once again
Low wage growth has held the Australian economy back. Contrary to the employer’s scare campaign, the Government’s proposal to facilitate multi-employer bargaining offers the prospect of some improvement, especially for those employees whose bargaining position is weakest. Continue reading »
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AUKUS and the corruption of Australia’s Universities
Our universities have become the industrial brothel-keepers to the nation’s fevered national security imaginary. Continue reading »
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COP 27: Sleepwalking to global armageddon
An article in the prestigious journal Nature shows a dramatic increase in the likelihood of tipping points causing a runway disruption to the globe’s environment. Australia and other governments participating in COP 27 are nevertheless sleepwalking along a path which wrongly assumes a predictable manageable rise in temperatures. Continue reading »
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The truth about Hong Kong is too difficult for the western media to grasp
Early November saw Hong Kong host a gathering of world financial/banking leaders, lay on a successful Fintech conference, and then host the first Hong Kong Rugby 7’s tournament since 2019, which Australia won! Continue reading »
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How defence will ruin Australia
China has no interest in attacking Australia. But once America ensconces its B52 strike aircraft at Tindal, Australia perforce becomes a hot target for missile attack. Protection for Tindal will be an imperative, requiring Iron Dome technology, at vast cost without certainty. No financial provision exists for ballistic missile defence at Tindal. Continue reading »
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Multinational tax integrity and tax avoidance by the fossil fuel industry: Part 1
This is the first instalment of a two-part series based on our recent submission to the Australian Government regarding tax transparency and the fossil fuel industry. The first part examines Australia’s global fossil fuel transnational corporations’ problems and tax practices. The second part provides recommendations for minimising their tax avoidance practices. Continue reading »
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Better, not smaller government: confessions of an econocrat-watcher
Econocrats have spent too long struggling ineffectively to achieve smaller government, while doing little about what should be their real concern: not smaller government, but better government. Continue reading »
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Batteries of gravity and water: 1,500 pumped hydro sites identified
In eight years, Australia wants to be four-fifths powered by renewables. Solar and wind investment is pouring in. But to firm the renewables and overcome the intermittency, we need overnight energy storage. That’s why there’s so much interest in pumped hydro. Continue reading »
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Pointless, petty regulations are a handbrake on Australia’s truck fleet
We all rely on trucks: they carry our fuel, tools, construction materials – and of course, food and parcels. While trains specialise in carrying bulk goods such as coal and grain, trucks carry nearly 80 per cent of the non-bulk items we use at work and home. But unfortunately, trucks also create carbon emissions, and Continue reading »
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Australia’s frontier economy culture threatens opportunity and growth
John Menadue has written two insightful articles on the $530 billion infrastructure scandal. The documented account of waste and misallocation is deeply concerning not only on its own terms but also as the root cause of an even bigger problem in public sector resource allocation. It is a story of a missed opportunity and commitment Continue reading »
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Labor will struggle with deficit and debt until it raises taxes
There’s something strange about the recent federal budget. It reveals remarkably quick progress in getting the budget deficit down to nearly nothing. But then it sees the deficit going back up again. Which shows that, as my former fellow economics editor Tim Colebatch has put it, Rome wasn’t built in one budget. Continue reading »
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Budget Repair: Tax increases or expenditure cuts?
The Treasurer wants a national conversation about how best to repair the Budget. But that conversation will only help if it is based on a realistic analysis of the difficulties involved in achieving lower spending and therefore why tax increases must be on the agenda. Continue reading »
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(Un)common sense in the National Electricity Market grid design
In a recent (21 October) edition of Pearls and Irritations, Roger Beale suggested (amongst other things) that the Commonwealth should “seize sole control of the national electricity market” (the NEM) to bring stability to the energy transition and stop the states going their own way. Continue reading »
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TOMBS – Off-market buybacks: time to end regulatory capture
The budget announcement of plans to align the treatment of off-market buy backs with on-market buybacks, despite virtually no details being given, has provoked squeals of complaint from vested interests. Tax-driven off-market buybacks (TOMBS as we have called them) have been around since 1997, and the rationale for the allowance of this unfair tax rort Continue reading »
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‘Peaceful modernisation’: China’s offering to the Global South
Xi Jinping just offered the Global South a stark alternative to decades of western diktats, war, and economic duress. ‘Peaceful modernisation’ will establish sovereignty, economy, and independence for the world’s struggling states. Continue reading »
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What’s next for Xi’s China?
The Western media have done Xi a great favour: they have bestowed upon him low expectations. Many Western observers, including thoughtful ones, believe that the great China growth story is over, because China is now ruled by an incompetent and isolated leader. Xi will shatter their expectations. Continue reading »
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Is hydrogen for export over-hyped?
There is a good deal of hype about the potential for exports of Hydrogen. But there are technical and competitive reasons to question how large a boom it will be. There are other opportunities in the low-carbon world, and the need to decarbonise the economy is urgent. Continue reading »
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8 billionth human: Has the population bomb exploded?
Sometime in the next few weeks, human being number 8,000,000,000 will enter the world. But what sort of a world will they inherit? Continue reading »
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